The invention is particularly useful in connection with the interviewing of individuals for news broadcasts, but can be used in any situation in which stereophonic recording of sounds is desired.
Interviews which are performed on location for news broadcasts normally involve a single interviewer accompanied by a single cameraman. During monaural recording, the interviewer normally holds a microphone immediately in front of himself to record his question, and then advances the microphone to a subject in order to record a response. The question and response are sequentially transmitted along a single transmission channel and recorded essentially as a single monaural recording.
Since broadcast stations have in recent years expended considerable money to provide stereophonic transmission of sound in connection with video broadcasts, it would be desirable to permit newscast interviews to be recorded stereophonically. At present, this would involve providing the subject with a separate microphone, which is inconvenient, or alternatively providing the interviewer with a comparatively expensive stereophonic microphone. Stereophonic microphones commonly comprise separate transducers coupled to separate signal transmission channels, an electronic representation of sound being transitted on different transmission channels depending on the direction from which the sound is received. Such microphones are fairly expensive and sometimes difficult to orient for proper division of signals between transmission channels.